Your children were born into a very different world from the one you were born into and grew up in. When the game changes, so do the rules, and boy, oh boy, has the game changed for your children!

The family paradigm has changed radically. When I grew up, the typical family was still a working dad, a stay-at-home mom, and two or three children in a neighborhood full of intact families. Today, the divorce rate is around 40 percent, and children living with a single parent or in a blended family are common. And this creates a whole new environment of risk for children.

Did you know that compared to a child living in what researchers refer to as an intact family:

A child with a biological mother who lives alone is 14 times more likely to suffer abuse.

A child with a biological father who lives alone is 20 times more likely to suffer abuse.

A child with biological parents who are cohabitating but not married is 20 times more likely to suffer abuse.

And, most shocking of all:

A child with a biological mother who is living with a man who is not the child’s father is 33 times more likely to suffer abuse. (Source: Dreamcatchers for Abused Children)

When I’ve presented these statistics to audiences on my show, the reaction is incredulity. But there’s more:

Children living in households with unrelated adults are nearly 50 times as likely to die of inflicted injuries as children living with two biological parents. (Source: Journal of American Academy of Pediatrics, 2005.)

Children of single parents had 77 percent greater risk of being harmed by physical abuse than children living with both parents. (Source: National Incidence Study)